Back in Darwin

For the third time in 4 years we have come to Darwin for the winter (or, as they call it here,'the dry'). With average maximum temperatures around 30 degrees, minimums around 20 degrees and 0 days of rain, it has the absolute best climate in Australia at this time of year, particularly for us keen golfers.

To get here we decided to just put our heads down and cover ground quickly, we travelled for 6 days out of the previous 7, covering nearly 3,000 kilometres. It is surprising how exhausting sitting in a car can be, and it probably isn't an exercise we will repeat. However, we can now take it easy for a few months, we intend to play lots of golf and relax in the sun.

We've updated our address list below to reflect the park we are staying at here, we haven't yet decided our movements once we leave Darwin.

Boulia

Boulia is in the far north west of Queensland, with the closest towns Winton 350 km to the east and Mt Isa 250 km northwards. It took us 2 days of driving to get here, stopping overnight in Longreach. Boulia is surrounded by Mitchell Grass plains, a vast semi-arid region with rich black soil that forms huge cracks when it dries out. As a consequence trees cannot take hold, so there is dense waving grass as far as the eye can see. The area is mainly pastoral, with cattle wandering freely by and over the road, which means that you have to be careful not to collect some beef-on-the-hoof. The flat plains are broken by the occasional 'jump-up', rock formations created when a layer of hard rock protects the softer rock underneath from eroding, leaving  spectacular flat topped hills poking out of the otherwise flat landscape. The drive here was much more interesting than it sounds, the grasslands being quite different to other landscapes we have seen on our Australian travels.

Boulia itself is a bit of a surprise, being a pretty little town of trees and green grass, despite being located near the edge of the Simpson Desert. It is famous for the phenomenon of the Min Min Lights, fuzzy lights that appear with no apparent explanation, and reportedly have even chased people. It probably isn't surprising therefore that the main local attraction is 'The Min Min Light Encounter' a surprisingly classy experience that tells stories of encounters with the Min Min using high-tech wizardry and animatronics. It certainly was an enjoyable experience, we even bought a tea-towel as a momento!

Emerald

We had intended to stay a few days at Emerald and a few at Blackwater, about 70 km closer to the coast, but we had been warned that with the mining boom in the area caravan park space was at a premium. When we tried to book in at Blackwater we were told they didn't have any room until at least August, so we ended up staying an extra day at Emerald and visiting the Blackwater attractions on a day trip.

Emerald itself didn't have a great deal to offer once we'd taken this photo of the 'world's biggest van Gogh Sunflower painting on an easel', an attraction whose entertainment value is rather limited. Of more interest to us was the fact that the caravan park backed onto the quite good local golf course, we took advantage with a couple of games.

On our day out to Blackwater we spent most of the time at the Blackdown Tablelands National Park, which sits perched above the surrounding flat plains on a sandstone escarpment. Several walks led to spectacular lookouts and both aboriginal and European historical sites. When European pioneers first came to the area to lush grasses and bush of the tablelands looked ideal for running cattle, however a lack of nutrients in the soil meant that cattle lost condition when grazed there, so now the old huts and stockyards have almost disappeared. As well as the walks we also did a 19 km 4-wd loop road, which at times tested the full capabilities of our Patrol.

After the national park we dropped in to the Blackwater International Coal Centre which 'explores the past, present and future of the Australian coal mining industry'. However, although relatively new the centre has obviously not been maintained (maybe because there are hardly any tourists in town because they have nowhere to stay) and instead of the advertised $16 per head admission price we provided only a gold coin donation. The displays were moderately interesting, although the video on carbon capture and storage did rather imply that this was a present reality rather than a hoped for future.

Carnarvon Gorge

Carnarvon National Park in central Queensland is home to one of the country's most impressive gorge systems. The last 12 kilometres of the access road to the adjacent caravan park is unsealed, so we were in two minds whether we would visit with our decidedly non-offroad caravan. However, we decided that the gorge really is on the must see list for any trip around Australia, so we took it slow and easy and the van seems to have survived the experience.

We spent 3 full days at Carnarvon Gorge, and did most of the available walks. On the first day we polished off the short walks, including Baloon Cave, a rock overhang with stencilled Aboriginal rock art.

On day 2, Wendy tackled the 6.4 km trail up Boolimba Bluff. John was concerned that the 'climb up 963 steps with several small ladders' would be too much for his delicate achilles tendon, so stayed at the van. The trail wasn't quite as tough as the trail notes suggested, however the 300m section of extreme uphill took Wendy 20 minutes to negotiate, and every step coming back down sent jolts through her knees. The view from the Bluff lookout made the effort worthwhile, the photo at the top of the blog shows the towering white sandstone cliffs that line the gorge.

The main trail at Carnarvon Gorge runs for nearly 10 kilometres from the visitor centre to the head of the gorge. There are also multiple side trails that branch off the main trail, so to do the whole set of trails would need 2 days, camping at the head of the gorge overnight. We have neither the equipment nor the inclination to camp out on a walk, so chose to walk the first 5km of the main trail, visiting the side gorges on the way back to make a total walk length of around 14km.

The main trail is reasonably flat, winding near and, several times, across the creek that runs down the base of the gorge. The three side trails we visited, however, were all reasonably steep with multiple steps (more jolting through the knees). The creek crossings were much easier than those we encountered at Main Range National Park a month ago, with large solid stepping stones, so we weren't ever really in danger of getting wet feet.

The first side trail led to a large aboriginal rock art site. The second side trail led up Ward's Canyon, a green oasis that is the only Australian home of the world's largest fern, the king fern, outside the coastal strip. The third side trail, to the 'Moss Garden' ended at a micro-climate of dripping rocks where the porous sandstone walls met a solid shale support. Water that may have fallen as rain thousands of years ago and that has seeped gradually through the sandstone meets the impermeable shale and oozes sideways, to emerge as a myriad drips. The line where the two rock types meet is marked by masses of mosses, ferns and lichens, fed by the constantly dripping water.

The total walk took us nearly 5 hours, and by the end we were quite exhausted. John's feet and Wendy's knees were well and truly walked out, and we had a very quiet and early night indeed. However, we loved our time at Carnarvon Gorge, and we are very pleased to have 'crossed it off the list'.

Mundubbera - Biloela

We've now come inland to central Queensland. Mundubbera is the centre of a citrus growing region, the nearby town of Gayndah has a 'big orange' and Mundubbera itself has an 'Enormous Ellendale' (a type of mandarin), however as 'big' things go neither is particularly big. We spent a couple of days here, long enough to have a game of golf and visit the nearby Auburn River National Park. We decided not to tackle the tough trail at the national park that descended into the gorge and back up again, instead we strolled along the cliff top to a moderately scenic lookout. The peregrine falcons that were supposed to nest in the cliff opposite must have moved on, as we couldn't spot the  'whitewash' marks that were supposed to be the tell tale sign.

From Mundubbera we moved a couple of hundred kilometres north to Biloela. On the way we stopped at the RM Williams Centre in the small township of Eidsvold. This has only been open for 18 months, and celebrates the life of the famous bushman who spent the last part of his life in the area. The entry fee was only $5 each, reflecting the rather sparse display, but we saw as much as we needed to.

We were quite busy in our couple of days in Biloela. We firstly visited Mt Scoria, a volcanic plug featuring many sided basalt columns. Supposedly it is known locally as the 'musical mountain' because the basalt columns at the top ring when hit with another rock, however climbing of the mountain is now discouraged, so we just did the short walk around the bottom.

Like so much of Queensland Biloela is host to a mine, in this case a coal mine just outside town. A significant part of the output is sent on a conveyor belt to the adjacent power stations, which supply around a third of Queensland's power needs. A steep road from the edge of town leads to a good lookout over both the huge open cut mine and the power stations.

We picked Biloela as somewhere to stay as it is the closest town to the Kroombit Tops National Park, however when we got here we found that there is no road to the park from here, and in fact we would have to go over 100km to access it. So instead we decided to visit Cania Gorge National Park, still a good 80km back southwards down the road we came here on. The gorge is eroded through sandstone, but the creek is now dammed above the gorge so there is very little flow. Gold was discovered in the gorge in the late 1800s, and there are still remnants of the mining operations scattered through the hills. The 'easy' 1.4 km walk around the old mine workings was a lot more uphill than we had expected, and so we probably shouldn't have been so surprised when the 'pleasant, easy' 6 km walk turned out to have something like 1,000 steps to negotiate. It was, however, still quite pleasant, visiting several caves, lookouts and rock overhangs. However, we abandoned our plans to also tackle the 'easy, scenic' 1.3 km circuit walk, particularly given the description of it 'meandering upwards'!

Maryborough

We've come down the Mary River Valley to Maryborough, which is close to the river mouth. This is the birthplace of P.L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins stories, and, although she left Maryborough at the age of 8, the town claims full credit.

Maryborough's original wealth was based on its status as a port city, and up until federation in 1901 was the port of entry for thousands of immigrants. There are many attractive old buildings reflecting this history. These days Maryborough is a tourism and agriculture centre, with sugar cane grown in the surrounding areas. Surprisingly, it also hosts some heavy industry, with many of Queensland's trains built in town.

Being savvy travellers, we were keen to front up for the free walking tour around town. The 'Mary Poppins' dressed guide was interesting and knowledgable about her home town. We were also lucky to be in town for the monthly family day in the local park. Although the drizzly weather meant that the promised brass band didn't appear, we added another boat trip notch to our belt with the half price cruise down the river.

The Maryborough local market is held weekly in the town centre, and has a good selection of local fresh produce. We went along on both Thursdays we were here and stocked up on cheap fresh fruit and veggies. On another day we visited Hervey Bay, a big tourist destination on the caost only about 30 km away, although we didn't really see the attraction of the town.

Unfortunately rain confined us to the van on a couple of our days here, but we still managed several games of golf, and for a change both played well enough to finally make a return on our green fees, to the order of 6 golf balls between us. It may not sound like much, but it is a big change to our usual result!